Your top 10 mistakes in this hobby? - Page 5

Below...

I have probably made 10 or more mistakes or wrong decisions in audio, but since I am blessed with a lack of regret of anything I have done, it is hard to put the finger on some. Oh well – all my 6SN7GT tubes. With the current usage, I cannot consume them all in my life time I think.

#1 - Spending more money on gear than music.

#2 - Not always trusting my ears.

When something sounds "magical" to you, my advice is to stop the relentless upgrade journey and enjoy what you have for awhile. (A long while.)

There is a strong tendency to disrupt your system with an upgrade with promise only to discover the synergy has evaporated. When this happens, do you get rid of the upgrade part and return to the magic? Not usually. Instead, you look for something else to upgrade. Of course everyone should experiment and see what's out there, but trust me just a little when I say that you should really think hard before disrupting a system that gives you goosebumps. You may find after spending hundreds or thousands that all you are is that much wiser as you return to what really did it for you in the first place. In the meantime, you could have used the money to fill in your music collection.

-coma

P.S. My 1000th post. Yay for me...

Trouble is, sometimes you don't know how good you got it until you've performed said upgrade and found the magic has disappeared.

1. Getting into the hobby!
2. Spending WAY too much money on it!
3. Getting addicted to the sound of more and more expensive gear, and spending even more money!!!
4. Not just buying the dream gear straight away, and going step by step through stupid upgrades losing tons of money in the process!
5. Ignoring my cables for so long
6. Ignoring power conditioning for so long
7. Listening to a crappy sound card as source for so long, and upgrading further down the chain to try and improve things... GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT!
8. Buying a Benchmark DAC1
9. Selling a Benchmark DAC1 for considerable loss
10. Hugely overpaying for a PS Audio P300 in crappy condition.

(1) Not buying a pair of B&W 802 Matrix 3 rosewoods for myself when I was still a dealer
(2) Not buying a pair of M-L's when I realized I should have bought the B&W's
(3) Not buying a ITC 1/4 system when ITC was still around, and I still had Matrix 2's
(4) Getting rid of my first L-P system (at least I corrected that huge one!)
(5) Not getting a VPI, SOTA or AR for myself with a Alpha1 when I was a dealer for those, as well

(note the trend - when you're in the business you never buy anything for yourself! And you regret it later!! )

(6) Doing (early) home theater installs (and losing the fun from just listening when I had to deal with a-ho' customers in their own homes)
(7) Not making up my own pair of MIT's longer than I needed at the time, in 1m rather than .5m, and now I can't use them (sob) (lesson - always buy IC's just a bit longer than you need them now so that later, when you move things around, you've got extra to play with)
(8) Selling the first generation of CD players to customers - the Phase Linear and the Dual - even though they sounded like shiate and we knew it, too!

Even though we educated a lot of people back then on how bad "perfect music, always" really sounded it (compared to vinyl) was still backing the Dark Side of the Force. But it was good times shooting down people who insisted that CD sounded better because that's what they read, when we did a side-by-side "blind" comparision...and the customer picked vinyl, every time!)

(9) Not going to more unamped jazz / blues / rock / R&B sessions (I'm working on that, but I think "unamped" is going the way of "uncompressed")

(10) I still have more time to make more "mistakes"!

Off topic but that's why I never mod my cars and very selectively mod my motorcycles. You end up with a inverse curve - the manufacturers spend ages, and sometimes millions, to work things out and then someone is going to "improve" it - by comparison - "relatively simply"? Not. The more you mod the less you get. If you want a Honda, mod it with a turbo, bored Acura motor and AWD for "better performance"...just buy a Lexus GS for the same money and get something that doesn't have teething pains.

And a warranty.

WellyWu I agree with many of your points.

I haven't made any huge mistakes in this hobby yet since I take my time with upgrading. Every impulse purchase I've made (fortunatly only 2) I've regretted and ended up selling later on.

But if theres anything I 100% agree with is that upgrading slowly is the most enjoyable way to get the most out of high end audio equipment. Because wether we like it or not the differences in high end performance is very, very slim

1) Not realizing the degree of differences in audio. A HD650 may be darker and a SA5000 may be brighter, but no matter how creative people get when describing these two headphones, it's not like your music gets shifted an octave up or an octave down. It's still the same music. Also, when I compare my rig (which is not very impressive) to live music, I can tell that the live music is better, but I know that no matter how much I upgrade my rig it will not become better than the live music, since the difference between the live orchestra and my rig is not beyond compare or night and day.

2) Selling too fast. I spend huge amounts of time considering purchases but I think I regret selling my ER-4P. Not that the UM1 sucks, but I was considering upgrading to some IEM that is more clear and I didn't keep the ER-4P around long enough, so I don't remember how it sounded like.

#1) K-1000s - Hated their metallic sound and even my 2 yr old laughed when I had them on.
#2) SA5000s - So bright they blinded me.
#3) Portable amps (SR-71 and SMv3). Great little amps, but I realized that when I go portable, I also like to go minimalist.
#4) MPX3 - Wonderful amp, but I should have gone straight for the SDS-XLR that I now use.
#5) $15K on a vinyl rig - Only to figure out that I can't stand listening to vinyl.
#6) Sony NWE 307 - Looks like an egg. Also has the ergonomics of an egg.
#7) Cardas Golden Reference - Maybe my ears aren't sensitive enough, but spending $6K on 5 sets of cables did nothing to make anything sound different. goo old Cobalt Cable is good enough for all of my systems now.... although I do still use Cardas GR in my headphone setup.
#8) Roku M2000s - Should have waited for the SB3.
#9) Buying a bunch of Gentle Giant CDs before ever hearing them.... technically, they're good, but to me, all their music sounds like it is made for Leprechauns on speed.
#10) DELL XPS Gen 4. - Way too loud to function as a music server.

1) Not listening to those older and wiser then me when I got into Hi-Fi
2) Buying a G08 when I should have gone for something much better
3) Wasting time and money on some crappy cable brands before finding the good stuff
4) Thinking that more expensive is better. The lesser the markup the better
5) Wasting my time with dynamic speakers when I knew they weren’t for me
6) Spending way to much money on DIY amps

Ok I think that does it…

Not quite ten, but...

1. Finding this site.

2. Going to meets.

3. Listening to Stax Omega II's.



Hey, those were the big mistakes as far as my wallet is concerned.

My worst decision has been indecision. Whenever I finally gathered enough money to buy an upgrade, I would end up not being able to choose what I wanted. And then I would have already spent the money on something else. Other times, I keep thinking bigger and bigger. For example, originally I wanted a standard M^3. I gathered enough money, and then I thought: What if I got a maxed M^3 or PPX3? I started saving money again and then I thought: What if I got a PPX3 Slam or Dynahi? It keeps on going, and I still haven't bought anything. And I've already spent what I've saved on other items like a new digital camera. Bah.

doobooloo mod on my sr60s...
(sending it back to gradolabs for a repair )